2012 Census Metro Vancouver Population Numbers

The 2011 census population data is in and the trend of rapid growth in outlying metro areas seems to be continuing as Canadian’s everywhere search for affordability while wanting to remain somewhat close to the main econonomic and cultural hub. Montreal has Laval, we in Vancouver have Surrey. In the last 5 years there was one clear winner, in terms of population at least and that is Surrey (outlying metro area), which added 73,000 people. It’s population boomed 4 times the rate of Vancouver, the economic and cultural hub of the lower mainland, which only managed to add 25,000 new residents.The numbers for Vancouver may seem low but aren’t surprising. There is little to no land left in the city to develop save for a few areas such as the River District and Little Mountain redevelopment. Once fully developed they’ll add approximately 20,000 residents to the city. The rest of the growth in the city will come from rezoning traditionally single family neighbourhoods to mid to high rise development communities.

On the other hand Surrey still has a lot of undeveloped land and it finally seems to be getting a solid understanding of good urban planning. However, Surrey won’t grow at this rate forever, eventually all land will be used up and growth will come down a few notches. It’s projected that both Vancouver and Surrey will roughly be same population around 2041, however at this rate it may be sooner. The reasons are simple, Surrey offers cheap housing and has lots of land, that is the recipe for strong growth, especially in the cash strapped lower mainland.

From a national point of view B.C. is the second-fastest growing province in Canada, second only to Alberta. Canada’s overall population increased 5.9 per cent between 2006 and 2011 to 33.5 million, with the western provinces leading the charge. Also for the first time, the population of B.C. and the Prairies is greater than that of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

About the author

Around the Web

Facebook Conversations

Comments

Cue the Surrey people jumping for joy and screaming we’re gonna be bigger than you soon Vancouver! Then they realize it means nothing and they still live in Surrey.

I’m surprised that people move there but I guess it is the cheapest place in the metro to start a family.

The Vancouver numbers look low, how many people didn’t complete the census? Then again where I live in Richmond, the numbers look a little low too. Oh well, time to start planning more transit planning

Anonymous

There goes all the farm land. Morons.

Log1988

Who are the morons?

http://twitter.com/KashifPasta Kashif Pasta

I wouldn’t say Surrey has much “cheap” housing anymore (a decent house will set you back around $800k-$1m+), but yes it’s definitely more affordable than Vancouver and has a ton of new public venues ready to be enjoyed.

Anonymous

what is the alltogether population

Zdasdasdas

hi

Zsdvsa

everyone ASFOHEDGOFHsdIOGH

Hockeydude32

i love you all

Hockeydude32

lets go leafs

anonymous

Whos the morons here? In order to be a growing community, with a growing economy, we need to grow and sometimes that means to overtake farmland. otherwise, we would decline and lose jobs, and money and it would be another recession. Go live in Chilliwack where you wont have to worry about losing farmland, moron.

Valhalla_129

2.45 mil

Jared

wow

Jared

wow

Djmixst3r_1

indeed

Mooseinthemist

Growth, growth, growth. Dude that is the pathway to collapse of the biosphere. To be sustainable we need to balance out.

http://twitter.com/Freedomzone_ PvtLender

We have more ALR land than we know what to do with. Some of it is not even suitable for farming. The love affair with farmland is very misplaced especially since we have an over abundance of farming capacity. Now the trend is to have a few filthy chickens running around inner city yards in the name of “food security”. The amount of energy & input costs of such play farms is not environmentally friendly & only benefits the hippie ideologues desire to feel like a peasant farmer. Large scale farms that operate with modern farming techniques is efficient & the most efficient. Lets keep it that way.

MAD

by no means is ALL the farmland being taken over, for the most part the growth is increased population density, which is good. Beyond that, we have plenty of farm land that is not being taken over.
what we really need is a movement away from factory farming and twards wholistic organic sustainable agriculture. People in the city should also be increasing the ammount of urban agriculture they practice.

don’t just cry about lost farmland, go do something about it.

This Bitch

Shit the only place that should be getting developed is Winnipeg for gods sake.